If you feel that your residence has been suffering through an unfair amount of ear-splitting ringing, dinging, or wailing, it’s likely you’re not alone. This year, the campus has been abuzz with fire alarms and fire truck sirens sounding during the afternoon and oftentimes, in the middle of the night.
Much of the noise has come from HiRise, LoRise, and both the upper class and freshman residence of Fauver. Although they cause similar inconveniences for all students, forcing them to evacuate for several minutes, the triggers have come from several different causes.
On Sept. 4, the residents of Fauver 214 were unpacking and left some of their belongings on top of their stove. The stove accidentally got switched onto low, and after about an hour the items broke into flames.
“The fire department came, everyone was really helpful. Public safety was really great. Our apartment still smells like ash but besides that everything is fine,” said Anna Rabinovitch ’07, one of the apartment residents.
Associate Director of Campus Fire Safety Barbara Spalding estimated that the fire in Fauver caused a few thousand dollars worth of damage. The stove and over hood fan were both destroyed, and because the residents put the burning items in the sink, it was ruined as well. The walls had to be repainted because of smoke damage, and the windows were broken in an attempt to air the apartment out.
Although the activations have been less serious in LoRise, they have also been real alarms, not false activations. Systems have been activated two times due to smoke from stoves used in the apartments, according to Campus Fire Safety.
“We have a lot of bad cooks over there,” Spalding joked, accounting for the high volume of alarms that have occurred.
“It went off and we all had to go outside; I found out what happened because the people next door to us were the ones that set it off,” said LoRise resident Stephanie Brodsky ’09. “It seemed like a pretty normal mistake.”
According to Campus Fire Safety, there has also been one activation in a woodframe house this year, caused by steam from a shower.
The frequency of these inconveniences, however, is pretty typical of past years. While there was only one fire alarm in September of last year, for instance, the number soon rose, and HiRise and LoRise alarm systems were activated ten times during the month of October.
The fire alarm systems are activated by particles detected inside of the unit. During the early morning last week, a spider crawled into one of the smoke detectors in HiRise and set off the alarm. Unfortunately, when the fire department arrived, they did not see anything. When the system continued to go off, Campus Fire Safety went down to investigate and found the spider.
After proving their abilities multiple times to successfully evacuate the apartment buildings, HiRise residents were exempted from having a planned fire drill.
“As a result of the number of alarm activations, we did not conduct a fire drill because we figured they really did know how to evacuate the building,” explained Spalding. “They had been bothered a lot; we didn’t want to bother them again.”
“The first ones that went off the night before classes were probably the most inconvenient because they were so early in the morning and they went off twice,” said slightly peeved Hi-Rise resident Jillian White ’08.
Interestingly, White didn’t even know the cause of the fire alarms.
“No one ever explained to us why they went off. [I heard] it was someone who was smoking,” White said.
The Fauver freshman dorms have also suffered false alarms, but of a slightly different nature. Twice, students have pulled the alarm late at night as a prank. Both times, the entire building had to evacuate and wait for the fire department to come and inspect every floor. Causing a false alarm is a felony in the state of Connecticut, but according to Spalding, finding the perpetrator is virtually impossible.
Colin Campbell ’10, a resident of Fauver, was frustrated by the false alarms.
“When I am trying to get a good night’s rest and the fire alarm goes off it affects my sleeping patterns, or it breaks my concentration while I am studying,” Campbell vented after the second alarm went off.
Joey Chadwick ’10, on the other hand, took advantage of the time he was prevented from working or sleeping.
“I used the fire alarm as an opportunity to go to Summerfields,” Chadwick said.
For others like Fauver dorm resident Anika Fischer ’10, evacuations have become routine.
“I’m pretty comfortable running out in my towel at this point,” Fischer said. “I’ve got my exit route down.”
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